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Employee development is critical for both the employee and organisation’s growth. Creating an individual learning plan will boost your job performance using a structured approach.
Here are the 5 steps to developing an individual learning plan.
1. Develop learning goals
An individual learning plan may achieve one or several learning goals. Examples of such goals may be to develop or enhance capabilities in the current role or to plan for career advancement. Here are a few options to consider when creating an individual learning plan:
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Organisation’s mission, vision and values
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Employee’s job description
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Employee’s performance goal statement
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The results of any assessments of individual or department competencies
2. Conduct a self-assessment
This is a stage where the employee not only learn to identify his or her strengths and weaknesses, but think ahead to a period of 3 to 5 years to assess whether they have the relevant skills required to progress from their current job position. Some questions to consider include:
a. What competencies must be enhanced to succeed in the current role?
a. What competencies must be enhanced to succeed in the current role?
b. How will present competencies contribute to future work?
c. What advancing technologies will influence the need to learn?
3. Determine the learning styles
The purpose of training is to increase knowledge so that the employee will be well-equipped to do their job. However, it is important to bear in mind that everyone has different learning styles. Some of us are aural learners who learn best when physically listening to the content, hence traditional face to face sessions benefits them. Others can be visual learners who learn by looking at graphs, charts and information presented visually. There is also a group of learners who prefer to learn by doing, hence hands-on experiences while learning the new content will be helpful for them.
4. Identify learning activities to support the goals
At this stage, employees have to consider what action they will take or learning activities they will commit to attain the goals. Here are some activities to consider:
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Books, industry magazines, journals
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Webinars, TED-Talks or Youtube
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Mentors, coaches and one-to-one trainers
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Seminars, conferences and formal training programmes
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Committees or special work teams
5. Put your plan into action
Review your individual learning plan with your manager for approval and to gather feedback on whether it is feasible. Once your manager gives you the go-ahead, get started and make adjustments along the way. Review your progress at certain intervals to ensure that learning is on track and celebrate successes too.